Zika Breakthrough: Oregon Researchers Zero In On How And Where The Virus Attacks

A major breakthrough into how and where the Zika virus attacks the body has been made by scientists at Oregon Health and Science University, they announced Thursday. The researchers say that their work will hopefully lead to therapies and even vaccines.

The researchers examined the progression of the virus in seven rhesus macaques at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Beaverton.

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They discovered that the virus attacks tissue in the nervous system, the reproductive system, urinary tracts, muscles, joints and lymph nodes and stays in the body longer than had been known.

Their study - the results of which were published in Public Library of Science Pathogens - determined that the virus continued to live on the tissue for at least five weeks. That was unexpected given that the virus usually disappears from the bloodstream within a week.

"This study helps us better understand how the virus manifests itself so that scientists can develop therapies and vaccines that could work in humans," says study author Daniel Streblow, associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute.

"What is different about this research is that we also were able to look at specific points in time to see where the virus grew in the tissues, not just the blood, so we can identify and target the reservoirs where the virus hides."

There have been 5,109 cases of Zika reported in the United States as of March 8, 2017. There were 50 cases in Oregon, but the majority have been in cases along the East Coast - 1,095 in Florida, 1007 in New York, 114 in Virginia - or states with people who travel to where the outbreak has been more serious, such as South America and Southeast Asia.

The virus is most often transmitted by mosquitoes, but there have been at least 75 cases in the United States where it was transmitted through other routes, such as sexual activity or in a lab.

"We observed that the Zika virus targets a number of neuronal, lymph, joint, muscle and genital/urinary/reproductive tissues at seven days post infection, accompanied by a rash, fever and conjunctivitis, or pink eye, similar to the clinical symptoms described in human infection,” says the study's lead author Alec Hirsch, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology, OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute.

OHSU says that the team that did the study "came together in response to the outbreak and the need to understand how the virus was attacking the body.

"The research team quickly grew to a 20-person cross-section of faculty across the university with expertise in reproductive and developmental science, flaviviruses, vaccine development, immunology, perinatology, pediatric neural development, microcephaly, Guillain-Barré syndrome, placental function, virology and infectious disease."

"Our study significantly advances what is known about the growth of the virus in the host during the early stages and through more than a month post infection, aspects of Zika virus infection not examined by previous nonhuman primate studies,” says Streblow.

Photos OHSU